Governor Phil Bredesen today tried to defuse any potential partisanship over his proposal to beef up assisted living options for people who would otherwise go into nursing homes.
The governor told the Tennessee Assisted Living Federation that legislators like Republican Senator Diane Black are his allies. Black led a news conference the week before Bredesen released his own plans, arguing that Republicans have been working on the problem for years.
The Democratic governor told the professional group it isn’t about the politics.
“This is one of these, one of these, actually wonderful issues that conservatives and liberals and Republicans and Democrats and moderates can kind of all agree on need doing.”
Giving families options for long term care isn’t cutting edge, Bredesen says. The state is ten to twenty years behind others. He reassured the group that the program does not intend to take patients out of nursing homes but instead gradually bring in long term care options.
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Bredesen says his plan, an amendment to a bill before the legislature, will restructure the current system to provide more and better options to entering a nursing home in the first place.
He told the professionals,
This program is not about taking people out of nursing homes. The number of people who will be able to transition out of nursing homes in anticipated to be quite low. Of course, we will absolutely provide assistance to those individuals wanting to do so.
But what this restructuring will really do is add options for people coming into the system. The change will be gradual… it will be some time before we see the balance of funding really begin to shift.
He said the changes will include:
• Allowing hospice services to be offered by nursing homes, instead of requiring the resident to move (he got applause from the professionals for that one).
• A faster process to determine eligibility (Bredesen is addressing TennCare as the first structure to be revamped.)
• A single point of entry into the system.
• A redefinition of “who a care provider is,” so that a combination of family help and government aid will work together.
See previous stories on long term care and an AARP survey on the issue.
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